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I beat you so now I'm waiting for you to play! Oh BTW I already identified you as an oddball so you can't be a non-oddball!For Halloween I'm taking my mask off and being really serious that day

Laura you have been coming on pretty regularly and I really am delighted. It's one more person to tease. Oh and I was so busy yesterday I forgot to do my happy dance and congratulate you for your third place ribbon in level 2!

YWAM = Youth With A MissionThey have a three month DTS (Discipleship Training School) and then they do a three month outreach to some area of the world. They've almost made it to all the countries of the world since they were started in the late 70s-early 80s. Keith Green worked with YWAM to encourage young people to join and when he died a bunch of young people went to the mission field as a result of his urging and testimony. Shawna did 3 DTS's and outreaches - once as a student and twice as a leader.

DDR - yes, it is Dance Dance Revolution. If you go to an arcade you can usually see the setup for one. We got a mat that hooks up to the Wii and senses your steps. It's hard. I'm doing the Basic level which is one up from Beginners; some of the songs are doable, but others are seemingly impossible. It's a great aerobic workout, though.

I almost didn't register to vote because I was afraid of getting called for jury duty and I really don't care for either candidate, but with the GMO labeling law here in CA I wanted to make sure that got on the books. So I'll just have to pick someone for President while I'm voting for that.

I was on standby all last night but will probably work tonight. I am short hours from last week so I desperately need to work.

So this time I googled it GMO genetically modified organism? satill have no clue what it is

So my heart is hurting for Q. His gf just drove 4 hours to break up with him. I told him if I could I'd get in the car and drive the 12 hours to see and just hold him and he said if I could he might let me. Though I do know I'm very blessed to have a 22yo son whose heart is hurting and I'm the first person he calls.

Shann wrote:So my heart is hurting for Q. His gf just drove 4 hours to break up with him. I told him if I could I'd get in the car and drive the 12 hours to see and just hold him and he said if I could he might let me. Though I do know I'm very blessed to have a 22yo son whose heart is hurting and I'm the first person he calls.

Ugggggh!!

I know long distance relationships are hard but I half way wonder if she broke it off cause she's interested in someone else.

I wondered that too but I don't think so. I think it's more because she is 2 years younger and in a different place in her life and in her spirituality. She is absolutely terrified of being a minister's wife too and since Q has invested all of his time and energy into becoming a minister and still has three years left it's a hard thing to picture. She is very sweet and quiet and I have a lot of respect that she drove 4 hours one way to have an in person conversation with him. It would have been a lot easier to just call or text him. I do feel bad because M's wedding is going to be really tough for Q. Her is delivering the message(sermon) so though it will be painful I have no doubt that God will use it as a healing balm. Q has pretty much always had a girlfriend since he was 16. There have been a month or two in between break-ups but not a real long time. He needs to learn how to be comfortable and confident in himself and that can be hard sometimes. Lonely is a horrible feeling but being in the wrong marriage or relationship is worse (at least in the long run) It's quite easy to be lonely in a crowd so he needs to learn how to be okay by himself. And I have no doubt that he is quite capable but my heart still hurts for his heart.

Yeah I can understand the being alone thing all to well. I mean I've always been alone so that's all i know. Believe me, there are plenty of times that I believe i'll always be alone and sometimes even if a guy shows interest in me (which is almost never) I always think its too good to be true and it usually is.

I'm sorry for Q and I hope he heals quickly and that the break up doesn't steer him off course too much. It does go to show how caring she is that she did drive that way to break up with him instead of calling or texting or emailing (seeing as how that would have been easier but meaner).

lauralnm wrote:Why you don't write, Pup, is beyond me. I think you are hilarious!

I write, just not very good.

I get tons of ideas for stories, even sit down to start writing them. Then... sit, and think more on it, maybe write a few paragraphs that go nowhere, or seem like something I wrote before, or worse, like something some one else wrote. And being bad at grammar doesn't help much. I guess one could say I love the idea of writing... I am just not very good at it.

Shann, he hurts now, but he will survive. When I was 19, I was engaged to a guy who was studying to become a Bible Translator. He was brilliant in knowing several languages and wanted to go on the mission field. I broke up with him because I did not want to be a missionary and my life's path was going on another direction.

He still followed me around like a little puppy. I finally introduced him to a mutual friend and they ended up getting married. We are all Facebook friends now!

I sometimes wonder where my life would be now if I'd stuck it out with him.

I get tons of ideas for stories, even sit down to start writing them. Then... sit, and think more on it, maybe write a few paragraphs that go nowhere, or seem like something I wrote before, or worse, like something some one else wrote. And being bad at grammar doesn't help much. I guess one could say I love the idea of writing... I am just not very good at it.

Pup, I believe I've seen you on here for a number of years. I have been around off and on since 2009. I just looked up your profile and read a couple of your Challenge entries. What do you mean you aren't very good at writing? Tsk-Tsk! I'm no expert, but I thoroughly enjoyed those that I just read.

So my heart is hurting for Q. His gf just drove 4 hours to break up with him. I told him if I could I'd get in the car and drive the 12 hours to see and just hold him and he said if I could he might let me. Though I do know I'm very blessed to have a 22yo son whose heart is hurting and I'm the first person he calls.

Shann

Now, Shann, I am so sorry to hear your son is hurting. That's a difficult one. As a parent, especially a mother, you want to go to his side, but sometimes they just need space too. I DO, however, think it is exceptionally cool that he called mom to share his hurting heart. During this past week, one of the things that was significant to me at our Revival at my church is that God knows what He's doing and in Q's case as well, God knows what He's doing. He has something or somebody for Q who He will reveal in His time. God will help heal Q's heart, but it never hurts to know you have such a caring mom as you.

By the way, Shann, thanks for the Happy Dance! It means a lot to me, as you do!

lauralnm wrote:Why you don't write, Pup, is beyond me. I think you are hilarious!

I write, just not very good.

I get tons of ideas for stories, even sit down to start writing them. Then... sit, and think more on it, maybe write a few paragraphs that go nowhere, or seem like something I wrote before, or worse, like something some one else wrote. And being bad at grammar doesn't help much. I guess one could say I love the idea of writing... I am just not very good at it.

Except you have at least two friends who love you very much and are delighted to help proof your stories and fix any bad grammar and they both do it with no judgement only love So there! Now get to writing ya ole goat!

And thank you everyone for your love and your support. There's a cool I love you from God thing that happened which I will share soon but now it is too fresh.

Shann wrote:Okay where are the others? Quite a few people have been MIA lately. We need you to come back and balance out the oddballs well Holly is an oddball too but I still want her to come back and Kara is kind of an oddball...hmm then Jay..oh not to mention Tim too Well Barb Seema Shelley Kate Ivy you all should come back to balance out the oddballs and bring a friend with you so if the other oddballs come back it will be balanced.Who do you think will be more insulted--the oddballs or the balancers?

Okay. So I'm not a "regular" and I'm an oddball, so I probably don't help that balance at all, but I'm still here. Just lurking.

Glad to have you. And you can say you're an oddball but you have to prove it! No I'm trying trying to scare you away from being a regular either but we used to play a question game where each person would be in the hot seat and others would ask the questions. Those answers are what determines if you're an oddball. Hmm. . .on second thought it was really the questions that proved who was an oddball! Hmm. . .maybe I am the only oddball. The real determination has to do with matching your underwear to your clothes and that's all I'm gonna say--well and the type--bikini, thongs, boxers, briefs or granny panties and that is my last word on the subject.

Sorry to hear about Q, Shann. Hopefully he puts all of his trust in God to provide the right girl for him. It's good that she didn't stretch it on longer and longer if she knew she didn't want to marry him. It would be harder if she had waited until after the wedding and all the pictures and memories...so even though it's rough, it'll be better in the long run. Glad he called you and cried it out.

GMO's are genetically modified foods which are produced to be resistant to pesticides and herbicides. Thus the farmers can douse their fields in both, killing every living thing but the GMO crop they're growing. But now when you eat corn or soy or wheat or vegetables you are eating all of those pesticides and herbicides, and what are they doing to your body? If the farmers wear spacesuits to spread them because of their harmful effects, why would you want to eat them? That's why organic food is so expensive and hard to produce and rarer than GMO crops. Most of the food in the US is GMO, unless it's labeled organic or non-GMO. The CA labeling law will basically force all stores to label everything GMO unless it's not. Then places like Whole Foods where people assume it's mostly organic will be honest about how many items they have which are GMO. A lot of people go to WF thinking that everything's organic, and then they see two items, one labeled organic and loads more expensive than the other, and they buy the other, thinking it's also organic, but it's not. It's GMO. And for a lot of people, GMO's are something we need to avoid whenever possible.

I'm trying to really take charge of my health. I'm trying to lose weight, really cut out the GMO's, to cut back on medication wherever possible, and next I have to figure out how to get some clean drinking water. Apparently where we live has some of the worst tap water in the country. We have a Brita filter, but it doesn't eliminate pesticides which have leached into the ground water. Whenever we do have kids, I want to make sure I'm very healthy so my babies won't have birth defects. Not sure how to figure out the water issue. I'm pretty much non-dairy now, and I think I've decided to be vegan about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time, with fish and grass-fed meat on the side (kosher - no pork or shellfish except very rarely). I know there are a lot of people who are either vegan or Paleo, and they both have points on either side, and Biblically you can make a case for both. But I'm sticking with a balanced diet. And I take a zillion supplements. It's coming up on flu season, and so I need to stay healthy through the winter.

Okay, that is a very shortened version of my sermon on organic food and vegan/Paleo diets. If you want more info you're gonna have to call me.

Had a good night last night and a nice delivery. There was a knot in the cord, so basically it was a miracle baby. So glad nothing bad happened. I had a kind of ugly strip so I suspected something to that effect; had the NICU team and the neonatologist there for delivery but the baby cried right away and did fabulous. I even made it out on time which was wonderful.

Debating whether to clean house or chill tonight. We had a nice Indian dinner earlier with a Groupon deal. I may need to work off the points from my dinner with the DDR...